Beer: Ratings & Reviews

Reviews by HalfFull:

22 oz. bomber poured into a wine glass and purchased at Costco for six bucks. Pours a dark brown with a half inch of somewhat fleeting head. A spin does bring up a light surface cap when needed and adds a sense of creaminess with warming on the foam. Bit hazy and deep mahogany in the light. Dry roast character on the nose is dominant and offering a bit of light char though not quite ashen. Light hop notes and some dark cherry and light chocolate accompany.

Taste follows and reinforces a light char character, a muddled fruitiness and some spice on the back side. Bit thin and vinous at times but yet finishing with a medium and dry linger of carob and a final flash of alcohol.

Nicely done though a bit too attenuated as for my preference in the style it seems. Yet a good dose of warming fills the body nicely.

More User Reviews:

Pronounced "Yoo-rah-tuh).It seems like CC is collaborating like crazy right now,if I were other brewers I would want to collaborate with them to.Pours into a 1/2 liter stein a deep dark chocolate color with garnet hue,a sticky half finger tannish colored head atop.Dark roast coffee and a bit of char in the nose,that Baltic Porter kind of mineral element comes along as well.Whoa so easy to drink with minimal sweetness and firm dryness,bitter chocolate and big earthy tones along with deep coffee flavors,the alcohol is very well hidden.Iam leary of alot of the collab beers but this hits the mark,a great beer.

22oz bottle, with some useful phonetic spelling of the apparently Baltic language-named and of course mythical mermaid nomad from said region spelled out on the label.

This beer pours a deep, dark chocolate brown hue, with rather subtle cola basal edges, and two skinny fingers of bubbly, weakly foamy, and frothy beige head, which leaves a bit of organic invading alien spaceship lace in parts around the glass as things quickly abate.

It smells of powdery dry cocoa, somewhat sour milk, bready caramel malt, wet tobacco, understated black orchard fruit, soft citrus and piney hop notes, further ashy astringencies, brown sugar, and a hint of the alcohol that will surely come to be. The taste is more bittersweet chocolate off the top, one barely singed by a lactic coffee addendum, with a bit of black licorice, fig and date earthy fruitiness, multifaceted smokey essences - ash, in its various guises, really - muted orange cream citrus, more toasted bready pale and caramel malt, and a strangely nutty booziness - like ghosts of my Italian-American Christmas pasts.

The bubbles are low-key for the most part, but supportive when it seems to count, the body a dense, medium-full weight, and more smooth than it really has any right to be, so good, I guess. It finishes on the sweet side, chocolate, caramel, milky (sans any particular sourness) coffee, and a nondescript nuttiness carrying the day.

More of a straight ahead Yankee porter, than anything bearing the heritage of those northern European waters of lore. Where be the tartness, lads? I'll give ya the heightened ABV, as 8 points like this are not usually so easily well-hidden - as well as a generally pleasant drinkability, but the expected complexity, and at least lip service being paid to style, are sorely lacking here. Pfft.

Surprisingly bitter up forward, with a sour tinge that lasts throughout. Dark fruit give it a hint of sweetness after the initial wave of bitterness. A huge wave of roasted barley crests midway, and you ride it the rest of the way through, waving quickly to coffee notes as you ride past.

This is a quite tasty Baltic Porter, with the huge roasted grains you'd expect from a stout, and the smooth drinkability of a lager. An excellent marriage of the styles. My only complaint is that there is little that stands out; no real calling card.